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What's a $250k payroll worth if that's also what you have to pay for the average hospital visit? I'd stick to my €100k and not have my life ruined just because

What's a $250k payroll worth if that's also what you have to pay for the average hospital visit? I'd stick to my €100k and not have my life ruined just because I broke my leg or my kid is born with a heart disease.

throwaway6734 4y ago
If you make 250k you can afford fantastic insurance and you'll still have a lot more left over. It's significantly better to be a high earner in the US than almost anywhere else in Europe (in terms of capital)
- numlock86 4y ago
  - Kavelach 4y ago
    I definitely didn't expect this in a HN thread
    - numlock86 4y ago
      I didn't expect to lose a cousin on a business trip to the US (Michigan) 6 years ago either. Life is full of surprises.
      - patates 4y ago
        I'm sincerely sorry for your loss, but moving the goalpost doesn't help the discussion. Again, nothing to take away from how dreadful what you lived through is.
        numlock86 4y ago
        Condolences appreciated. > doesn't help the discussion That's exactly my point. The discussion started to derail into "Who has more money?" like that's the ultimate metric. This just makes me sad but is pretty representative for the stereotypical US mindset. My point is there is a lot more to life than money.
        throwaway6734 4y ago
        At no point did I claim it was the ultimate metric and instead clarified that I was talking purely in terms of capital
  - bombcar 4y ago
    Life insurance is available- as is emergency healthcare riders. Americans won’t admit it publicly but a big part of living in America is knowing what parts of America you shouldn’t go. And if you do have to go to or through those areas, you start to understand why so many people drive urban assault vehicles.
- saiya-jin 4y ago
  And what about sending 2-3 kids to some good universities, how much do you need to save in cash? 1 million?
  - dopidopHN 4y ago
    A bit more, I would say count 100k/year/kid. And that outside of your own retirement. I’m currently on a US salary that is very generous. I don’t spend a dime extra because of those. It’s kinda terrifying I don’t know how they do it.
- sweaty 4y ago
  If you think this is good oh boy do I have news for you. You don't need to "afford" fantastic insurance, healthcare is essential and needs to be free for everyone, which it is here. I have complete freedom of choice across 27 countries, no strings attached, completely free of cost. So do people poorer than me.
- mgkimsal 4y ago
  Just ran some arbitrary numbers. Someone earning $190k in mid Ohio would have take home of around $140k, between state/federal. That's before any other retirement savings or anything else. A 'fantastic' insurance plan from blue cross anthem will be around $2400/month for a family of 3. With a 'modest' deductible of $4k. $2400*12=I around $29k. This person is having to spend ~ 21% of 'take home' just on medical insurance. Not any medical expense, just insurance. Assuming working independently, some of that is deductible, and one might argue how much left over is "a lot" or not. There's still food, shelter, utilities, transportation, education, etc. they need to account for, as well as saving for the future. Actually, looking at it, if the person is 'independent', they'd pay another ~$10k or so on FICA, or have some LLC structure set up. Or they might be lucky enough to have an employer who pays for some/most of this 'fantastic' insurance... until they don't. Perhaps in terms of raw dollars, there's some advantage, but there's a pervasive threat of "what if" scenarios that is hard to shake for a lot of folks.
  - ericmay 4y ago
    But if you are earning that you are likely working for a large corporation where your actual out of pocket expenses are much closer to something like $1000/month for that family (varies by situation). Far better scenario then a much lower European salary (probably closer to $80,000) with higher taxes and the same (at best) quality care. If you are working independently yea it may be more expensive, but (unfortunately) so few people work independently so it’s an edge case not really that valuable here. Though worth noting providing a way to untie healthcare from employers and still make it affordable so that you can more easily start a company is a good idea. It’s really difficult to do good analysis here. If you were in Ohio making $190,000 your family is automatically in the top 10% or so. If you worked remote you could buy a house outside of a major city for your salary equivalent, or in a city like Columbus for 2x your salary with some fantastic public schools. Also a nitpick while I think you get much more efficient and cheaper healthcare with the government running it, at the end of the day it’s never free so you have to actually compare taxes to premiums to get a fair assessment of cost.
    - mgkimsal 4y ago
- the_mar 4y ago
  Better how? It is probably better if you do not intend to have children or ever need medical care. People saying that taxes in the US are much lower than Europe, as a person who lived in London, San Francisco and NYC I’d like to disagree. The tax rate for my income bracket in the UK is 45%, and while federal income tax is 39.6% I still have to pay state and city taxes on top of that which works out to be about the same. However I get free medical care in the UK, affordable college tuition (10x less than the US at least), maternity leave, great public transit, I could go on. What does the same amount of taxes paid get me in the US? I’m not complaining about having to pay taxes, but sure would be nice to get something back that isn’t military.
  - lotsofpulp 4y ago
    > The tax rate for my income bracket in the UK is 45%, and while federal income tax is 39.6% I still have to pay state and city taxes on top of that which works out to be about the same. This statement is meaningless without specifying the brackets or providing an effective tax rate for a certain amount of income.
    - the_mar 4y ago
      Oh, spare me the semantics, the difference is still single digit % of the total income.
      - lotsofpulp 4y ago
        How would a reader know that? And how can that be true when the brackets are so different? UK does not even look like it has single vs married distinctions, not to mention the myriad deductions in the US, and the drastically different taxes in various locales (I pay $30k+ less per year by living on the other side of a state/city border). https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/taxes/federal-income-tax-brackets https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/taxes/federal-income-tax-... https://www.gov.uk/income-tax-rates https://www.gov.uk/income-tax-rates The 45% UK income tax rate is for 150k GBP, which is $167k. The top bracket for US federal income tax starts at $578k/$693k at a 37% tax rate. It does not seem to pencil out to being remotely close, and that is ignoring UK National insurance and pension tax rates, but I am not sure how UK pension works to equivocate to US FICA taxes.
jmartin2683 4y ago
I work as an engineer in America and yea.. that’s totally not how the math works. Healthcare expenses are largely covered along with the much higher pay and lower taxes. I think my out of pocket cost last year was negative after hsa contributions from the company.
- chinathrow 4y ago
  Yeah but what happens if you lose your job and get really sick? Or what happens if you get really sick and lose your job? In the US, that sounds like a need to either ruin your finances/life/pension/etc. In most places of Europe, not so much.
  - BWStearns 4y ago
    If you're productive and then get sick and get fired for being sick, by the time you die of lack of access to healthcare you had become poor. So you see, nothing bad happens to the good useful people!
  - jmartin2683 4y ago
    You have cobra coverage until you go get another job, which is something you absolutely have to do regardless. If you have an hsa, you’ll still have a bunch of money in there, too.
bpodgursky 4y ago
At the end of the day, the revealed preference is that many EU+CA developers move to the US for the salary, and extremely few US developers move to the EU. Draw your own conclusions.
- mola 4y ago
  An EU eng knows that if shit hits the fan, she can go back to Europe and have live well. So why not earn some extra cash in the US. An American doesn't have that privilege.
refurb 4y ago
I’ll give you an example. The delta in wages from my home country to the US, after taxes, could pay for private insurance for 5 families.
buzzerbetrayed 4y ago
This is just ignorant. Nobody with a $250k salary at a tech company in the US is paying any meaningful amount to health care. It is covered by insurance that their work provides.

throwaway6734 4y ago

If you make 250k you can afford fantastic insurance and you'll still have a lot more left over. It's significantly better to be a high earner in the US than almost anywhere else in Europe (in terms of capital)

numlock86 4y ago
- Kavelach 4y ago
  I definitely didn't expect this in a HN thread
  - numlock86 4y ago
    I didn't expect to lose a cousin on a business trip to the US (Michigan) 6 years ago either. Life is full of surprises.
    - patates 4y ago
      I'm sincerely sorry for your loss, but moving the goalpost doesn't help the discussion. Again, nothing to take away from how dreadful what you lived through is.
      - numlock86 4y ago
        Condolences appreciated. > doesn't help the discussion That's exactly my point. The discussion started to derail into "Who has more money?" like that's the ultimate metric. This just makes me sad but is pretty representative for the stereotypical US mindset. My point is there is a lot more to life than money.
        throwaway6734 4y ago
        At no point did I claim it was the ultimate metric and instead clarified that I was talking purely in terms of capital
- bombcar 4y ago
  Life insurance is available- as is emergency healthcare riders. Americans won’t admit it publicly but a big part of living in America is knowing what parts of America you shouldn’t go. And if you do have to go to or through those areas, you start to understand why so many people drive urban assault vehicles.
saiya-jin 4y ago
And what about sending 2-3 kids to some good universities, how much do you need to save in cash? 1 million?
- dopidopHN 4y ago
  A bit more, I would say count 100k/year/kid. And that outside of your own retirement. I’m currently on a US salary that is very generous. I don’t spend a dime extra because of those. It’s kinda terrifying I don’t know how they do it.
sweaty 4y ago
If you think this is good oh boy do I have news for you. You don't need to "afford" fantastic insurance, healthcare is essential and needs to be free for everyone, which it is here. I have complete freedom of choice across 27 countries, no strings attached, completely free of cost. So do people poorer than me.
mgkimsal 4y ago
Just ran some arbitrary numbers. Someone earning $190k in mid Ohio would have take home of around $140k, between state/federal. That's before any other retirement savings or anything else. A 'fantastic' insurance plan from blue cross anthem will be around $2400/month for a family of 3. With a 'modest' deductible of $4k. $2400*12=I around $29k. This person is having to spend ~ 21% of 'take home' just on medical insurance. Not any medical expense, just insurance. Assuming working independently, some of that is deductible, and one might argue how much left over is "a lot" or not. There's still food, shelter, utilities, transportation, education, etc. they need to account for, as well as saving for the future. Actually, looking at it, if the person is 'independent', they'd pay another ~$10k or so on FICA, or have some LLC structure set up. Or they might be lucky enough to have an employer who pays for some/most of this 'fantastic' insurance... until they don't. Perhaps in terms of raw dollars, there's some advantage, but there's a pervasive threat of "what if" scenarios that is hard to shake for a lot of folks.
- ericmay 4y ago
  But if you are earning that you are likely working for a large corporation where your actual out of pocket expenses are much closer to something like $1000/month for that family (varies by situation). Far better scenario then a much lower European salary (probably closer to $80,000) with higher taxes and the same (at best) quality care. If you are working independently yea it may be more expensive, but (unfortunately) so few people work independently so it’s an edge case not really that valuable here. Though worth noting providing a way to untie healthcare from employers and still make it affordable so that you can more easily start a company is a good idea. It’s really difficult to do good analysis here. If you were in Ohio making $190,000 your family is automatically in the top 10% or so. If you worked remote you could buy a house outside of a major city for your salary equivalent, or in a city like Columbus for 2x your salary with some fantastic public schools. Also a nitpick while I think you get much more efficient and cheaper healthcare with the government running it, at the end of the day it’s never free so you have to actually compare taxes to premiums to get a fair assessment of cost.
  - mgkimsal 4y ago
the_mar 4y ago
Better how? It is probably better if you do not intend to have children or ever need medical care. People saying that taxes in the US are much lower than Europe, as a person who lived in London, San Francisco and NYC I’d like to disagree. The tax rate for my income bracket in the UK is 45%, and while federal income tax is 39.6% I still have to pay state and city taxes on top of that which works out to be about the same. However I get free medical care in the UK, affordable college tuition (10x less than the US at least), maternity leave, great public transit, I could go on. What does the same amount of taxes paid get me in the US? I’m not complaining about having to pay taxes, but sure would be nice to get something back that isn’t military.
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  > The tax rate for my income bracket in the UK is 45%, and while federal income tax is 39.6% I still have to pay state and city taxes on top of that which works out to be about the same. This statement is meaningless without specifying the brackets or providing an effective tax rate for a certain amount of income.
  - the_mar 4y ago
    Oh, spare me the semantics, the difference is still single digit % of the total income.
    - lotsofpulp 4y ago
      How would a reader know that? And how can that be true when the brackets are so different? UK does not even look like it has single vs married distinctions, not to mention the myriad deductions in the US, and the drastically different taxes in various locales (I pay $30k+ less per year by living on the other side of a state/city border). https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/taxes/federal-income-tax-brackets https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/taxes/federal-income-tax-... https://www.gov.uk/income-tax-rates https://www.gov.uk/income-tax-rates The 45% UK income tax rate is for 150k GBP, which is $167k. The top bracket for US federal income tax starts at $578k/$693k at a 37% tax rate. It does not seem to pencil out to being remotely close, and that is ignoring UK National insurance and pension tax rates, but I am not sure how UK pension works to equivocate to US FICA taxes.

jmartin2683 4y ago

I work as an engineer in America and yea.. that’s totally not how the math works. Healthcare expenses are largely covered along with the much higher pay and lower taxes. I think my out of pocket cost last year was negative after hsa contributions from the company.

chinathrow 4y ago
Yeah but what happens if you lose your job and get really sick? Or what happens if you get really sick and lose your job? In the US, that sounds like a need to either ruin your finances/life/pension/etc. In most places of Europe, not so much.
- BWStearns 4y ago
  If you're productive and then get sick and get fired for being sick, by the time you die of lack of access to healthcare you had become poor. So you see, nothing bad happens to the good useful people!
- jmartin2683 4y ago
  You have cobra coverage until you go get another job, which is something you absolutely have to do regardless. If you have an hsa, you’ll still have a bunch of money in there, too.

bpodgursky 4y ago

At the end of the day, the revealed preference is that many EU+CA developers move to the US for the salary, and extremely few US developers move to the EU. Draw your own conclusions.

mola 4y ago
An EU eng knows that if shit hits the fan, she can go back to Europe and have live well. So why not earn some extra cash in the US. An American doesn't have that privilege.

refurb 4y ago

I’ll give you an example. The delta in wages from my home country to the US, after taxes, could pay for private insurance for 5 families.

buzzerbetrayed 4y ago

This is just ignorant. Nobody with a $250k salary at a tech company in the US is paying any meaningful amount to health care. It is covered by insurance that their work provides.